— Like Drew Barker, Elam said that the chance to help his home state program was a major reason for his decision: “That’s one of the main reasons I stayed, to help out my state program.”

— He told Drew Barker that he was picking Kentucky yesterday, but tricked him by saying he was going with Alabama first. When he told Barker he was just messing with him, Drew “got excited and said, ‘We gotta change this.'”

— Elam told Mark Stoops two days ago. How did he react? “He went crazy. He was like, ‘I can’t really say anything, but I just want to tell the whole world.’ His wife came in there and he was like, ‘Honey…’ I can’t really tell you what he said, but he just went crazy to everybody.” #ThingsStoopsSaidtoChantel?

— The whole helmet hat trick? Elam came up with that last night, and said he wanted “something different” and hopes it looked good.

— Would Elam have committed to Kentucky if Stoops wasn’t the coach? “No sir, not at all.” In fact, “With the Joker Phillips staff, me or Drew weren’t really considering them, but now, when the coaching staff changed, it just changed our minds a lot.” Ouch.

— On turning down Saban: “Not a lot of people have. A lot of people might be surprised, but he’s a great guy.”

— When it came down to it, “It’s hard to turn down Alabama, but my heart is at the University of Kentucky.”

Good decision if he wants to play right away. At Alabama, it would be easy to get caught up in the mix of uber talent they bring in and sit for 2 years waiting on his chance to play. Awesome get for Stoops and Co.

As much as Matt Jones hates dealing with recruits, KSR having the show at John Hardin HS was a dead giveaway that Elam was selecting UK. Matt would not have done that otherwise. He couldn’t be bothered, especially for a football recruit.

I couldn’t understand why his coach had his jacket zipped all the way up to
his neck, but i watched till the end of the presser and when he unzipped his
jacket he was wearing a BLUE TIE, couldnt tell if it had UK on it but it was
KENTUCKY BLUE… congratulations to Stoops and coaches…………..

Best comment of the day was Matt’s answer to “if he got discouraged watching UK last season”…. “No I did not at all, I mean I didn’t expect this team to turn around in 1 season just because Coach Stoops and his staff came to town… We play in the SEC and you can’t turn a program around in the SEC in one season… Now maybe if we were in the ACC we could do that, but it’s too tough in SEC.” BWHAAHAHAHA!!! Way to throw a right hook 10 minutes after becoming a Cat!!!!

Next to Nerlens’ “UK” haircut, I thought Matt’s helmet idea was one of the more creative of any I’ve seen. I’m glad to see he and the other recruits know success is a couple of years away. No immediate pressure could be a good thing for them.